Alloy: Character Creation basics part 5

Finishing Up

The last step is to calculate if you have spent over or under your character point allotment. If you have overspent, look at places you can shave some points off. Normally if you are over by quite a lot of points, removing trained traits might be the most economical way to fix the deficit. If you are off by a small amount, lowering skills is the most economical fix that doesn’t mess with the character concept. You don’t want to lower an attribute unless you have no choice and there is a large deficit to recover. The reason for this is that attributes form the cornerstone of the task resolution system.

Record Figured Characteristics

Each character has a few characteristics which are based upon their aspects or attributes. Initiative and Defense are the main ones, but for games utilizing fast combat options it doesn’t hurt to figure out Speed as well.

Initiative is the character’s reaction time, and is the combination of Agility and Intellect averaged together. Important characters get to round this statistic up, while minions and other unimportant adversaries round down, just like every other calculation in the game. As it is equivalent to an aspect, it can be rolled just like any other dice pool in situations where pure reaction time is being checked versus the environment, or between characters but combat will not ensue. Normally, Initiative is a bonus added to a die to determine who acts in what order when combat erupts.

Defense is the character’s hardiness. It includes armor’s benefit, whether natural or worn, and server as a threshold for how damage affects the character. You figure Defense by adding together a character’s Strength plus half their Resolve and adding 1 to that value. Armor adds on top of defense on a 1 to 1 basis, but Armor can be bypassed by certain types of attacks, maneuvers or fighting styles.

Mind is the character’s mental toughness and tenacity conglomerated into one score. You figure Mind by adding together a character’s Resolve plus half their Intellect and adding 1 to that value. Some characters may have mental defenses which add to Mind on a 1 to 1 basis.

Health is the character’s life force, and indicates how many wounds they can withstand before dying. Health is equal to Resolve, although it isn’t affected by temporary adjustments after character creation. When a character raises Resolve permanently, Health increases accordingly.

Much like Initiative, Speed is the average, albeit rounded down, of Strength and Agility added to any extra dice from the Fitness skill if the character has it. Certain creatures get a bonus on this dice pool, but most humanoids do not. This is optional, because it only comes up in chase situations. Speed does not determine how fast the character can run, or how far they can walk in a day.

After this, the only thing left to do is purchase gear and get ready to play.

Purchasing Gear

Heroes have a predetermined budget to purchase starting gear with. Normally this budget is a base amount for journeymen, 2.5 times that for adventurers, 3 times that for heroes, and four times that for legends. Wealthy characters get extra starting money, so do not forget to apply that bonus. These higher totals are meant to represent the higher quality equipment such characters often carry with them. In most campaign settings that base amount is 150 silvers, which is enough to purchase basic weapons and armor, or several expensive items such as a scrivener’s kit and other scholarly tools. Adventurers rarely carry around large amounts of money, so this initial amount should be spent as much as possible on items which make sense.

Deduct 10-20 silvers from the total for a generic adventurer’s pack (20 if it includes a bed roll, a lantern (rather than torches), and oil), and spend the rest on the gear listed below. Statistics associated with each of these items will be listed and explained in a future installment of the primer.

Armor Sets

Chain Mail

345

Leather Armor

115

Padded Armor

38.3

Plate Armor

575

Weapons

Baton

0.5

Battle Axe

5

Buckler

2.8

Dagger

4

Glaive

28

Great Club

9

Great Sword

92

Halberd

20

Hand Axe

3

Hunting Bow

11

Javelin

3

Long Knife

8

Long Sword

57

Medium Shield

7

Morningstar

14

Quarterstaff

1

Rapier

52

Reflex Bow

100

Short Spear

4

Short Sword

26

Stiletto

11

Throwing Knife

3.5

Tower Shield

10.4

Warhammer

11.5

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About Byron D. Molix

I am an information technology professional in Missouri. I've been an avid fan of fantasy and science fiction novels, comic books, pen and paper role-playing games, computer games and console video games for the last two decades. My dream would be to one day make a comfortable living while having the time to pursue writing (novels, rpgs, etc.) as a full-time hobby.